If there’s a nation-wide biotech skills shortage, why is it so hard for PhDs to find a job?

I recently read a story on the Canadian NewsWire that has me quite confused. According to the report, BioTalent Canada (formerly the Biotechnology Human Resource Council) is launching a program aimed at training unemployed manufacturing workers with skills necessary for entering the biomanufacturing field. According to the report:

Many traditional manufacturing skills are transferable to the biomanufacturing field. But unemployed workers simply do not know this

.

The report concludes that Canadian biotechnology companies are currently suffering from a nation-wide skills shortage and that properly trained manufacturing workers can help alleviate this shortage.

Last time I checked, there were hundreds of newly graduated PhDs and postDocs who have not been able to find industry jobs despite their best attempts. Furthermore, their many years of university level training in some of the best programs in the country has not netted them any success. Am I missing something here??? How can there be a skills shortage on the one hand yet an excess supply of already trained skilled workers with no place to go? Why look to trained manufacturing workers in biotech when an already trained workfoce is readily available and willing to work?

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